Perspective

Nathan Dunlap, siting next to one of his lawyers, Philip Cherner, left and Madeline Cohen, in blue, behind Dunlap, listens to the proceedings in Arapahoe County Court in Centennia on May 1, 2013. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Attorneys for condemned killer Nathan Dunlap filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday, claiming the state Department of Corrections' execution protocol — at least as much of it as they have access to — violates state law.

The lawsuit also challenges the DOC's practice of keeping details of its execution procedures secret.

"The protocol is so secret that it defies due process," said James Kilroy, one of the attorneys representing Dunlap in the civil suit.

"We've got lawyers and an inmate who literally don't know how the state intends to carry this out," Kilroy said.

What they do know about the process comes from a portion of an execution protocol, drafted in 2006, that has been released to Dunlap's attorneys, Kilroy said.

That document has been heavily redacted, but Kilroy said, "It refers to a three-drug protocol, where state statute indicates it should be a single drug."

DOC officials declined to comment, referring questions to their attorneys.

The new lawsuit is somewhat similar to another one that Dunlap's attorneys have been pursuing, unsuccessfully.

That suit charges that the DOC violated state law by compiling its rules and protocols for a lethal injection without public input.

So far, a trial court and a Colorado appeals court have rejected the argument.

Dunlap's attorneys have appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court and are waiting for the court to decide whether to hear the case.

Advertisement

The new lawsuit notes that one of the three drugs typically used in executions, sodium thiopental, is no longer made in the United States and other states have been unable to get it for executions.

The DOC has written to Colorado's compounding pharmacies, asking if they would be willing to concoct the drug. The department has declined requests from Dunlap's attorneys and from The Denver Post to learn whether any pharmacies have responded.

That, the lawsuit alleges, opens up the possibility of the department using a drug that has not been inspected by the federal Food and Drug Administration, and one that, in effect, has been prescribed by the DOC.

Dunlap is on death row for the December 1993 killings of four employees at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant where he had previously worked. He killed 17-year-olds Ben Grant and Colleen O'Connor, 19-year-old Sylvia Crowell and 50-year-old Margaret Kohlberg and made off with about $1,500 in cash and game tokens. A fifth employee, Bobby Stephens, was shot and seriously wounded in the attack.

Last week, Arapahoe District Judge William Sylvester set an execution the week of Aug. 18 for Dunlap, who is the longest serving of Colorado's three death-row inmates.

Missy Franklin, Jenny Simpson, Adeline Gray and three other Colorado women could be big players at the 2016 Rio OlympicsWhen people ask Missy Franklin for her thoughts about the Summer Olympics that will begin a year from Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, she hangs a warning label on her answer.